Hi. Like to respond to this comment Nick sent to the announce list. Hope relevant, registrar agreements and policies are not really my great passion. However:

Dear Community:

As you may be aware, the ALAC sent an advisory to the Board of Directors of ICANN in August 2008 related to At-Large community views on amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement ("RAA") (http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/correspondence/community-views-raa-negotiati... )

A number of the proposals in the Advisory related to the protection of registrants, including:

"Add a clause in the RAA to require registrars to show a standardized description of registrant rights, to be provided by ICANN in different languages, as an appendix to the contract at the time of registration, and also to make it available in the registrant's domain management interface whenever available. Such obligation should also be passed onto resellers. "

In the public consultation on a package of proposed draft amendments to the RAA begun in June 2008 (see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jun08-en.htm), this proposal can be found as a redline addition to the RAA text:

"In the event that ICANN gives reasonable notice to Registrar that ICANN has published a webpage that identifies available registrant rights and responsibilities, and the content of such webpage is developed in consultation with registrars, Registrar shall provide a link to the webpage on any website it may operate for domain name registration or renewal clearly displayed to its Registered Name Holders at least as clearly as its links to policies or notifications required to be displayed under ICANN Consensus Policies."

How clearly do registrars display ICANN consensus policies, is there some requirement/guideline? If consensus policies aren't prominently displayed then this requirement to display the description of registrant rights equally (un)clearly may not be that helpful. Long ago I was a member of the working group long ago on deletes, and that consensus policy includes this language "Additionally, in order to provide registrants with a complete understanding of registrars' deletion and renewal policies, the task force recommends that registrars inform registrants of those policies at the time of registration, and maintains them in a conspicuous place on their website." I struggle to find those policies on most registrar sites. What I'm trying to say is I think the instruction to registrars needs to be much more direct, along the lines of "you will display this policy/guideline prominently and ICANN will monitor." "Prominently" probably needs defining (a menu item for ICANN Policy on every registrar top page?) Adam

The ALAC Coordinator of the Registrant / Registrar Relations Working group of At-Large has asked that work begin, in consultation with the registrar community, on producing such a document. Volunteers from the At-Large community who wish to work on this project are asked to subscribe to the RRA-WG list at: http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/raa-wg_atlarge-lists.icann.o... and send an email introducing yourself to that list.

The RRA Working Group URL is: https://st.icann.org/raa-policy/index.cgi?at_large_registrar_registrant_rela... and you will find a new set of pages dedicated to this initiative along with reference information.

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Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart Director for At-Large Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA DD: +1 (310) 578-8637 Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44 Mobile: +41 (79) 595 54-68 email: nick.ashton-hart@icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart _______________________________________________ ALAC-Announce mailing list ALAC-Announce@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac-announce_atlarge-lists....

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org